Out of Kilter presents – Gristle Boy and the Shrinking Brains
By Ken Carpenter
Back in the caveman days, there was very little pickiness when it when it came to eating. Anything that could be chewed up and swallowed was considered food. That is no longer the case in the civilized world, and for good reason; some things are just nasty, not meant for human consumption unless you are starving to death.
Nasty is in the eye of the beholder though, and some of us have more in common with their cave dwelling ancestors than others do. Just call me Glarg, which is caveman for Cartilage Eater.
I come from a long line of carnivores. Most of my family would sooner gnaw a gristly bone than eat a hunk of pure meat. My tastes do not extend to fat though, and I will take great pains to avoid it.
My favorite part of the chicken is the leg, primarily because of the gristly bites that many people, including my wife, consider inedible. I am also partial to ribs and the best bites have those little white pieces of cartilage that you have to chomp like a dog to break down. At least once during a rib session my wife will complain that I am making her teeth hurt. I give her a crazed grin and keep on crunching away with my bulletproof, low cavity chompers.
Some medical reports claim that eating gristle gives humans the building blocks of strong cartilage. I don’t know how true that is, but my wobbly knees would argue the point. I do seem to have an abundance of cartilage in my brain though, and you couldn’t knock my sense into me with a two by four.
Speaking of brains, another medical report recently came out of that claims vegetarians are six times more likely to have their brain shrink than us carnivores are. It kind of seems like a lame excuse for calling them pea brains. I don’t know how legitimate their information is, but I do know that I have a gear of shrunken heads, so I am not saying anything else on the subject. Just to be safe, I might elevate my gristle intake in the future. My brain is small enough.
Pickled pigs’ feet are a gristle lover’s delight. I can easily munch half a jar down in one sitting. Fried chicken feet are good too, but I haven’t had any in years and years. I think I would be a successful cannibal, for I can’t imagine they get into wrestling matches over the feet.
There are quite a few humans around that could be accurately described as being gristly. You know the type, lean and tough with weathered hide that resembles a hunk of jerky. Many of us would be glad to have more in common with gristle than blubber but speaking for myself it just sounds like a lot of work. Winter is coming on too, and fat is a lot better insulation than gristle is.
I once got involved to a family dinner by one of my first real girlfriends, about two entries ago. As luck would have it they served chicken, and nobody else seemed to want the legs. I was pleased to snatch them up, and I munched them down in the manner that I had become accustomed to at home.
I didn’t catch on at the time, but it later occurred to me that nobody else seemed to have been eating the tasty, gristly parts of the chicken like I was. It also seemed more than likely that after I left, the family invented some type of carnivorous nickname for me that day; Gristle Boy or something just as demeaning.
Oh well, I’ve been called worse, and as stupid as movies are getting these days, Gristle Boy could become one of their cheesy new, villain-chomping superheroes.
Hmmmmm, then again, maybe not.